


Caving In

by GraeWrites



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Allusions to panic attacks, Ambiguity, Collapsing, Crying, Dark Sides do things that fit their function, Exhaustion, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Virgil's Tempest Tongue thing, a little bit of shoving tho, aggression and anger from multiple characters, allusions to being triggered, angst in droves, being locked/trapped in a room, but aren't necessarily healthy for Thomas in the long run, but the trigger is never specified, cursing, denial and self-deception, mild violence (mostly against a door
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 14:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21339691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraeWrites/pseuds/GraeWrites
Summary: When Thomas and some of the Sides get locked in Virgil's room, Virgil finds himself on the other side of the door unable to get it open. And afterward, Virgil finds himself trying to deal with the aftermath--even if Thomas is trying very hard to ignore it.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton & Thomas Sanders
Comments: 15
Kudos: 159





	Caving In

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is very, very different from what I usually write. But I'm proud of it. I hope it's an interesting read for you. Please let me know what you think!

Virgil throws his weight into the door as his breath strangles in his throat.

“**THOMAS**!”

He grabs the handle and shakes it hard enough that he wonders distantly if it might break. It doesn’t. It doesn’t turn, either. Virgil slams a fist against the door.

“**Thomas, damn it, open the door!**”

The distortion in his voice makes the demand echo down the hallway of the Mindscape, punctuated a moment later by the bang of a shoulder against the door. He kicks at it. He wrestles with the handle.

_How long have they been in there?_ Virgil doesn’t know. His sense of time is all kinds of screwed up. Has it been seconds? Hours?

Virgil kicks his sock clad foot against the door, gritting his teeth at the flush of sharp pain as his toes collide hard against the wood.

He can feel their panic flooding him like ice. Bile rises in the back of his throat and Virgil swallows hard. Slams a fist against the door again. Again. Again.

“**Patton!**” _Thud. _“**Logan!**” _Thud._ “**Roman!**” _Thud._ Virgil can feel himself shaking. “**Someone open the _fucking_ door!”**

He can’t get to them. He can’t get through.

Virgil doesn’t understand why. It’s _his_ room, after all.

…

_Moments ago._

Virgil feels the breath leave his lungs and he gasps a little, scrambling to his feet in the Mindscape.

_Virgil!_ Logan’s voice barks like a shout—strained and urgent—through the air of the Mindscape, and Virgil feels a frantic tug on his hair that forces him to his feet. Virgil yelps as he’s pulled sharply upwards.

He rises up with a grimace, his hands instinctively flying to his scalp at the sharp burst of pain.

“Shit, Logan—” Virgil cuts himself off as he looks around.

The apartment is empty. Virgil stands alone on the stairs, his heart hammering in his chest and only getting harder and faster.

He feels a tug deep in his gut, and a sudden understanding slams into him hard enough to leave him breathless. He knows exactly where they are.

…

_Present._

Virgil can feel his eyes stinging but he ignores it as he yanks against the doorknob with every ounce of strength he has.

“**C’mon!**” he grits out behind clenched teeth. Maybe it’s his own mind playing tricks on him but there’s a moment when Virgil swears he hears a crazed kind of laughter reply from the other side of the door. It sounds like Remus, but somehow even more unhinged.

“**Please!**” His voice is distorted so much it doesn’t sound like his own. It’s tight and pleading. It’s raw, and it burns Virgil’s throat. He doesn’t know if Thomas can hear him. He doesn’t know if Thomas knows he’s trying to get to him. He doesn’t know if Thomas understands that he is trying to help him.

His heart is thudding against his ribcage. He closes his eyes. He focuses. He still can’t rise up in his room. The only way through is the door. Virgil blindly, desperately, throws his weight against it again.

He can feel in his lungs the way that Thomas can’t get his breath.

“**Thomas, you—” **Virgil rakes both hands back through his hair and grips against his scalp. He squeezes his eyes shut and pleads through the door. “**You have to _breathe_—”**

…

_Moments ago._

Virgil closes his eyes and focuses. He breathes in, and feels a sudden rush and a faint sense of dizziness. He stumbles a moment, shaking his head.

“Thomas—“ he starts, before he realizes that he didn’t appear in his room as he’d planned. He rose up on the outside of it.

Virgil frowns and tries the door handle. It doesn’t turn, and Virgil feels a surge of fresh adrenaline.

“Very funny, guys,” he says, uncertainly. “Open the door.”

Silence.

“Guys, seriously. Let me in. It’s not safe for you in there.”

Virgil waits. Tenses. Seconds go by, and Virgil feels something hard and cold settle in the pit of his stomach. He tries the door handle again.

He can’t get the door open.

…

_Present._

Virgil is intimately used to the feeling of fear—the tensing of your muscles, the sharpening of all of your senses, the taste it leaves in the back of your throat—but he is afraid now in a way he hasn’t been in a very long time. He can’t give up. Virgil must get Thomas out of his room.

He _must_. He’s the protector. It’s his job.

_Why can’t he get in?_ He doesn’t know. He can’t stop repeating the question in his mind. They’re in danger in that room without him. He can _feel_ them through the door. The distinct senses of anxiety from each of them is pressing around every sense that Virgil has. Flooding them. He can _feel_ them. Feel their fear and taste it on his tongue.

And he can’t get to them.

Virgil rams his fist against the door again with a strangled, wordless cry.

He can’t protect him. He can’t protect Thomas.

“**I’m sorry**.” It’s all he has left. A hoarse, distorted apology as the fight rushes out of him with a suddenness that leaves him dizzy.

Exhaustion takes the place of his adrenaline. It sinks into his muscles with a sudden and intense weight, as if it had been a pendulum above his head waiting for someone to cut the string and slam into his shoulders. Virgil feels his knees suddenly shake and he leans against the door to keep them from giving out entirely.

The door swings open.

Virgil barely has enough time to regain his own balance as his initial support structure vanishes before he realizes that Thomas is standing on the other side of the door. His cheeks look damp, his eyes look red.

“**Thomas**—” Virgil barely gets the host’s name out before Thomas’s knees buckle. Virgil’s arms shoot out instinctively, catching him in a clumsy tangle of limbs. A burst of alarm surges through him, his eyes flickering up past Thomas’s head to see the other Sides.

They look…. Bad.

Their eyes are sunken, ringed dark with black eyeshadow. There’s something haunted about the look Patton gives Virgil, and the Anxious Side doesn’t miss the way he’s trembling where he stands. Roman’s chest is heaving, and his eyes are screwed shut. Logan is looking at Thomas, silent and unmoving save for the slight shake to his hands. Virgil sees Logan curl them into fists.

For a long, painful moment, nobody moves.

Logan is the first one that does anything. He takes a step forward, seems to lose his balance, and then takes in an unsteady breath. He gives a pointed, if solemn, look at Virgil. The Anxious Side doesn’t understand the look in his eyes.

“Thomas,” Logan says. The word shakes. Logan stops, clears his throat, and tries again. His voice is much, much quieter than Virgil can ever remember hearing it. “Thomas, you must rest.”

Virgil glances down at the host sagged against him. He feels Thomas nod slightly against his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says hollowly. “Okay, Logan.”

Virgil still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say—a dozen questions come to mind, none of them ones that Virgil feels brave enough to ask in this moment—as Thomas gets his feet a little more firmly under him. Thomas glances at Virgil as he pulls away and gives him an exhausted, shaky smile before he sinks through the floor.

“Guys…” Virgil tries, finding some semblance of a voice for only a moment. Logan brushes past him without another word, heading towards his own room. Virgil tries not to wince as the door to Logan’s room latches shut behind him.

Virgil looks back at the others and sees Roman has opened his eyes, his breath finding a calmer rhythm. He looks like he can barely hold himself upright, but he claps a hand on Virgil’s shoulder as he steps past the Anxious Side. Virgil doesn’t say anything, watching Roman head to his own corner of the Mindscape without a word.

“I think we all just need some rest, kiddo,” Patton murmurs quietly. “That’s… that’s the first priority.” His voice sounds distant and detached. In fact, sounds so unlike the Moral Side that Virgil can only look at him. Patton gives him a sad, tired look, kisses the side of Virgil’s head, and goes to his own room.

Virgil stands at his doorway, finding that for all the effort he had just put towards getting through that door… it’s suddenly the last place he wants to be.

…

Nothing is right.

Virgil can’t shake the feeling of uneasiness deep in his gut when he wakes up—as if sleep didn’t ease the tension he carried with him, but rather just put it on pause. Virgil sits up and scrubs a hand across his eyes, hating the way the shadows of his room linger in the corners with watchful eyes. Taunting him with the understanding that his room had been witness to… to _something_, even as Virgil still wasn’t sure how to make sense of it.

_What had happened yesterday?_ Virgil had wracked his brain into the late hours of the morning for some kind of explanation before sleep finally claimed him. Usually, when he had such a dilemma, he’d pad his way quietly to Logan’s corner of the Mindscape and ask the Logical Side to share his thoughts. Logan had always been grounded and calm and willing to help.

But last night, Virgil didn’t go to Logan. With the mere thought of the Logical Side came the accompanying images of him with black eyeshadow, stiff shoulders, and unsteady steps. Logan had told Thomas to rest, and then went to his own room without another word. And each thought of going to either Roman or Patton brought similar images back to his mind.

Virgil tries to take a deep breath to appease the queasiness of his stomach. It doesn’t help as much as he wished it would.

The Anxious Side makes his way to the kitchen with his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. He knows it’s late morning, if not already the afternoon. The Mindscape is….eerily silent. On most days, even in the absence of conversation, Virgil could at least hear the movement of the other Sides going about their business. On good days, Roman would be singing somewhere. Or Logan would be shuffling through papers. Or Patton would be watching a movie.

It’s silent. It makes Virgil’s skin crawl.

He rounds the corner around the banister, surprised—given how quiet it is—to see Logan sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a book.

“Morning,” Virgil ventures with a forced nonchalance. He glances at Logan out of the corner of his eye as he makes his way to the counter. The eyeshadow as faded out, but there’s still something stiff and uncomfortable about the way Logan is sitting. Virgil eyes the coffee, but he isn’t sure he can stomach the bitter liquid right now with how tangled the knots in his stomach are.

“It is 12:34,” Logan replies, matter-of-fact. Impossible to read. He doesn’t look up from his book. “Which technically makes it afternoon.”

Virgil hums. “Noted.”

Everything is uncomfortable and awkward and _wrong_. Virgil hates it. He hates how he suddenly doesn’t know how to act around anyone. He’d compare it to before he ducked out, but in some ways it’s even worse. Because even when he was “the bad guy”, he knew what to do. This is different. He wants to know what happened yesterday. He doesn’t know if it’s okay to ask.

Then again, Virgil supposes that if he were to ask any of them, Logan would be the best choice. He’d get a straight answer, anyway.

“Hey, uh,” Virgil tries as he opens a cupboard to avoid looking at the Logical Side, “Logan?”

“Hm?”

Virgil knows it’s best to ask point-blank, so he lets the question tumble past his lips before he can chicken out. “What happened yesterday?”

There’s a long pause. Virgil stops staring absently at the collection of mugs he doesn’t plan to use and instead glances over his shoulder. Logan meets his gaze quietly, then he sighs softly. Logan closes his book and sets it on the table in front of him.

“Thomas—” Logan’s mouth snaps shut with an audible, sudden click. He clenches his jaw, a flash of something—panic? Anger?—through his eyes. Virgil frowns and opens his mouth to say something when a different voice speaks up from the entryway to the kitchen.

“Thomas is fine, Virgil,” a familiar, deep voice purrs. “No need to go asking around about something that’s in the past.”

Virgil whirls towards the voice, his hands instinctively curling into fists. “Deceit.”

The Lying Side arcs an eyebrow. “Virgil. _Lovely_ to see you again.”

“What do you want?”

Deceit pushes himself off from leaning against the entryway and steps further into the kitchen. “The same thing you do. Ultimately, anyway.”

Virgil glances at Logan, whose resolute silence and grinding jaw only serves to make Virgil angrier on his behalf. The Anxious Side glares at Deceit. “Cut the bullshit. Why won’t you let Logan talk?”

“Relax, Virgil.” Deceit glances down at a gloved hand, then back up. “I’m merely being honest on Logan’s behalf. Let him save his breath. Thomas is _fine_.”

“Somehow I don’t believe you.”

Deceit takes a step forward, his gaze suddenly intense and sharp. There’s a demanding edge in his eyes, even as his voice keeps that infuriating smoothness. “You never do. Especially when it comes to Thomas being okay. But tell me something, Anxiety. If you keep making something out of nothing, where is that going to lead Thomas?”

“I—”

“I’ll tell you where,” Deceit hisses, moving even closer. “Pain. That none of us asked for. If you keep digging where there is nothing to be found, you’re not going to benefit anyone. You’re _certainly_ not going to benefit Thomas.”

Virgil stands his ground. “I’m trying to protect him.”

Deceit’s yellow eye glints slightly as he gives him a scrutinizing stare. “We all are. But don’t let the fact that you happen to feel uneasy cloud your judgement. I, too, am part of Thomas’s self-preservation. And I can assure you: Thomas is _fine_.”

Virgil chances a glance towards Logan, surprised to find him gone. The Anxious Side doesn’t know when he left. Deceit’s words reverberate in his skull. _Thomas is fine. Thomas is fine. Thomas is fine._

“You’re a bad liar, Deceit,” Virgil snaps. “I don’t even _want_ to believe you on this one.”

Deceit’s gaze narrows before he pulls back, a look in his eyes that makes Virgil suddenly uncomfortable. “Hm. Takes a liar to know a liar.”

Virgil disguises the sudden chill that runs down his spine with a scoff and an eye-roll. When he looks back at where Deceit had been standing, he’s gone.

…

Hours later, Virgil still can’t stop thinking about what Deceit had said.

_Thomas is fine._

Virgil had always been dedicated to the idea of ensuring that was true. That was his job—make sure Thomas is fine. Physically, socially, financially, emotionally. _Fine_. If there was a risk to that, it was Virgil’s job to make sure Thomas limited that risk as much as possible. Sure, sometimes Virgil overdid it, but he’d gotten better at that, hadn’t he?

Thomas had told him once, _it’s important for me to recognize the concern, register it, and carry on, changing my actions if necessary_. And the host had, for the most part, held up his end of the bargain. When Virgil was concerned, Thomas at least listened to what he had to say. Sometimes he changed his mind, sometimes he didn’t. But Thomas still let Virgil make sure he was, well. Fine.

Deceit _is_ capable of telling the truth. Virgil knows this. In some ways, Virgil can’t help but think, it’s precisely what makes him so frustrating.

_Thomas is fine_.

Is he?

Virgil groans to himself, flipping his hood up over his hair. He leans his head back against the arm of the couch and stares up at the ceiling of the Mindscape Commons. His thoughts are running in circles. It occurs to him, distantly, that he still hasn’t seen Patton or Roman today.

As if on cue, Virgil hears someone coming down the stairs. He picks his head up and glances over. Usually, the Anxious Side could tell who it was by the rhythm and weight of their steps. But these are heavier and slower than usual. Virgil can’t help the faint note of surprise when Roman emerges, in his usual Prince attire but somehow lacking a certain vivacity that usually emanated from him like a beacon.

Roman doesn’t even seem to notice him on the couch. He has a few strands of hair falling into his face, and Virgil thinks he can still see faint traces of eyeshadow lingering like a faded bruise around his eyes. Roman pauses at the bottom of the stairs with his hand still on the banister railing. He looks… out of it. He looks quiet and small and so _unlike Roman_ it makes Virgil’s stomach squirm with discomfort.

“Roman?” Virgil ventures quietly, sitting up more fully. “You okay, dude?”

Roman blinks quickly and shakes his head, seemingly finally noticing the other Side in the room. “Virgil,” he greets, and even his _voice_ sounds exhausted. Roman smiles dimly. “I’m afraid I’m a bit tired. Nothing a little caffeine can’t fix.”

Virgil wants to remind him that it’s almost three in the afternoon. He doesn’t. “I think Logan drank the last of the coffee,” he says instead. He watches Roman closely.

“Ah. Well.” Roman blinks hard again, then glances uncertainly back at Virgil. “I suppose I should go assist Thomas. No rest for the weary, and all that. We can make do.”

Virgil had always been well attuned to the anxieties of Roman, Logan, and Patton. Roman’s insecurities about his performance and others’ perception of it radiated from him in waves on the bad days. Roman may be Thomas’s ego, but he is also the other side of that same coin in equal weight. Hesitation and self-doubt are not new emotions to pass through Roman’s eyes.

But the uncertainty behind his brown irises as he glances at Virgil is something _different_. It’s not his regular brand of self-doubt; it’s not the kind with which Virgil already knows how to help.

“Roman,” Virgil says suddenly as he realizes the Prince is about to leave. Roman stops and Virgil swallows. “You don’t… seem good.”

Virgil wishes immediately that he had said something else, because he _sees_ the way Roman starts throwing up walls. Starting with the dramatic show of an offended gasp. “Excuse you, I am the single most delicious snack—”

“Dude,” Virgil cuts in, “Stop. It’s me you’re talking to. Look, I wasn’t trying to make this into a whole thing. I’m just…. Worried.” _Understatement._

“Virgil—”

“Is this about what happened yesterday?”

The question is met with a startled silence. When Virgil meets Roman’s eyes, he realizes the Prince looks briefly like a cornered animal. Then Roman starts shaking his head. He waves a hand.

“We don’t need to talk about yesterday, Virgil,” he says, dismissively. “It’s not going to happen again.”

Virgil stands up slowly, his gaze narrowing at the Prince. “How do you know that? What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter what happened.”

“For crying out loud—”

“Let it alone, Virgil!” Roman snaps, something both angry and desperate his voice. “It doesn’t matter, okay? Leave it alone. Thomas is _fine_.”

Virgil freezes at those words. _Thomas is fine_. “You’ve been talking to Deceit. Haven’t you?”

Roman clenches his jaw for a moment. “So what if I have?” he asks in a much softer voice than he’d been using a moment ago.

Virgil opens his mouth to reply, but no words find their way up his throat. There’s something small and pleading in Roman’s eyes. Something haunted. Virgil doesn’t know what he can say to him. And before he can formulate a response, Roman averts his gaze and sinks out of the Mindscape.

Virgil grits his teeth and pulls on the strings of his hoodie, tightening it around his face until he can’t see for a moment. He half-sits, half-collapses back on the couch with a heaving sigh.

He can’t be mad at Roman. Not really. A small part of Virgil wants to argue that Roman should know better than to listen to Deceit by now, but a larger part of him knows that he really can’t blame the Creative Side. Deceit had told him that Thomas was fine. Of course Roman would want to believe that. And if Virgil is being honest with himself—_actually_ honest with himself—he knows that he also wants to believe it.

_Thomas is fine._

But he _isn’t_. And if nobody else would acknowledge it, Virgil would.

…

“Thomas.”

Virgil had waited until Roman returned to the Mindscape before deciding to confront the host himself. He figured it would probably be best to talk to Thomas alone. Or, if nothing else, at least without any of the other Sides manifested. It hadn’t taken very long. Roman and Thomas were both still exhausted, only spending about an hour brainstorming ideas for new videos before Thomas called it a day.

Virgil had thought briefly about how that was only postponing work until later, when they would have even more to do and less time to do it. He decided not to voice the thoughts, though. He had more pressing matters to deal with.

Thomas looks up from the computer in his lap from his position on the couch. “Virgil?”

“We need to talk.”

Perhaps it’s the lighting, or the lingering tiredness, but Virgil thinks he sees the host pale slightly. “Um, yeah. Okay.” He sets the computer on the coffee table in front of him, rubbing the back of his neck. “What’s up?”

Virgil arcs an eyebrow. Was Thomas really going to pretend he didn’t know why Virgil was here? “Yesterday.”

Thomas glances away, studiously avoiding meeting Virgil’s gaze again as he stands up from the couch and crosses into the kitchen. “What about yesterday?” he asks in an unusually even voice.

Virgil watches his retreating form. “I think you know what.”

He sees the way Thomas’s shoulders tense beneath his blue polka dot shirt. “Look, Virgil, I appreciate the concern. But it’s fine. _I’m_ fine.” Thomas pulls open the freezer.

Virgil stays by the bottom of the stairs, watching carefully as the host pulls out a bag of pizza rolls. Thomas doesn’t look at him, turning the knob on the oven to start preheating it. Thomas repeating the words that had been parroted to him all day felt like a nail in the coffin of his worst fear. Of course, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Deceit says what Thomas wants to believe. Virgil had to snap him out of it. Even if that meant falling back on old habits for a moment.

Virgil crosses towards the kitchen. “You were in my room.”

“Virgil—”

“You were _trapped_ in my room.”

“I—”

“You couldn’t get out and I couldn’t get in. You were stuck, with Logan and Roman and Patton.”

“And Remus,” Thomas mutters.

Virgil stops. “What?”

Thomas shakes his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t even matter.”

“Bullshit, it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters—”

“It’s over.”

“_What_ is over? I don’t even really know what happened! I just know It was bad, Thomas. It was _bad_—”

“Enough!” Thomas snaps, dropping the bag of frozen snacks on the counter and whirling around to face Virgil. Virgil freezes. It had been a… long time since Thomas had yelled at him. The host sucks in a breath that trembles slightly and runs a hand down his face. As quickly as it came, the outburst dissipates. Thomas sags a little against the counter, pinching the bride of his nose. “Please, Virgil. Just… leave it alone. I don’t want to think about it.”

Deceit’s words hiss in the back of his mind. _If you keep making something out of nothing, where is that going to lead Thomas? I’ll tell you where. Pain. That none of us asked for._

Virgil swallows. Shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie again. “Whatever,” he says, quieter. “Wear oven mitts when you put those in.”

He sinks out before Thomas can so much as glance up.

…

Virgil finds Remus half an hour later when the Anxious Side emerges from his room.

He didn’t like being in his room anymore. It didn’t have the same effect on him that it did on the other Sides—and Thomas, for that matter—but the longer he stayed in that space, the more clarity was brought to the images from yesterday of them shaken and afraid and quiet. They’d been standing here. In his room.

_Why hadn’t Virgil been able to open the door?_

He steps out of the room, unable to take it anymore, when he sees the Intrusive Side practically skipping down the hallway. Virgil flushes, his hands clenching at his sides. He remembers suddenly what he had thought was the sound of Remus’s laughter from the other side of the door.

Virgil grabs the back of Remus’s shirt and yanks him to a stop, shoving him up against the wall.

“Ooo, Virgil,” Remus says, sounding positively _delighted_. “I do love it when you play rough.”

“What did you do?” Virgil growls.

Remus waggles his eyebrows. “Probably something kinky, but I think I need more context.”

Virgil had forgotten for a brief moment just how easy it was for Remus to make him feel nauseous. “Yesterday. You were in my room with them. You kept the door shut.”

“That’s what’s got your underwear in a twist?” Remus grins. “I think it was boat loads of fun. If Thomas is a boat. Specifically the Titanic, right before it went under. Your room is _fun_, Virgil, why have you never invited me over?”

“What did you do to them? What did you do to Thomas?”

Remus winks at him suggestively. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I’m not playing games, here, Remus. You put them all in danger.” Virgil had thought he was just a nuisance. A _minor inconvenience_, Virgil had decided to label him after Logan had explained that his existence didn’t make Thomas a bad person. Maybe Virgil had misjudged Remus, though. After all, a common cold can become something much more serious, can’t it?

“_I_ put them in danger?” Remus raises his eyebrows, his mustache twitching. “Oh, no, no, no. I think that’s your wheelhouse, Hadesfrown.”

Virgil furrows his brow, letting go of the other Side roughly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I only arrived at the party after Thomas was already in your room. Which begs the question, where were _you_?” Remus taps Virgil’s nose with his finger. Virgil scrambles back a step, batting Remus’s hand away from his face. Remus continues, unperturbed. “You missed quite the show, though.”

“I…”

“Thomas even asked about you. They all did. And you were nowhere to be found.” Remus pouts like a child. “Left them alone to fend for themselves.”

Virgil shakes his head, tripping as he backs up a step further. “No. That wasn’t what happened.”

“Patton was the first one that started crying.”

“Stop.”

Remus tilts his head. “I thought you wanted to find out what happened.”

“I-I do.” Virgil hates that he trips over the words as they leave his lips.

Remus looks unconvinced. He adjusts the fabric of his ridiculous, sparkling sleeves from where Virgil had been gripping him. “Do you? Or are you just looking to put the blame somewhere else?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come _on_.” Remus flicks a hand. “Honestly, Virgil. Make up your mind. Do you want to know what happened in your room without you? Because I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you all the juicy, delicious details. But I think your _real _problem is that you couldn’t help them.”

Virgil averts his gaze from Remus, staring instead on the carpeted floor on the Mindscape hallway that resembled Thomas’s apartment hallway.

“I mean, that’s kind of your whole job description. You’re supposed to keep Thomas from danger, aren’t you?”

“I—”

“You said it yourself.” Remus takes a step closer. Virgil steps back to maintain the distance. “Thomas was thrown into the lion’s den. _Your room_, Virgil. Where were you when Thomas needed you? Because I was there. And I can assure you: they don’t do as well as I do when locked in your room.”

“Shut up!” Virgil snaps, looking up, but Remus is already gone.

….

Hours later, Virgil thinks he hears a knock at the door to his room before reminding himself he must have imagined it. The last thing he expects is anyone to come knocking on the door to his room. Nobody seemed to want to talk about it, so naturally they’d want to avoid being there too, right?

Virgil tugs the headphones off his head just in case and lets them hang around his neck loosely. Evanescence floats out from the speakers. He’d been trying, without much luck, to drown out the thoughts tugging at his mind ever since his confrontation with Remus.

Remus had a point, of course.

Virgil hadn’t been where Thomas had needed him, _when_ Thomas had needed him. The fundamental part of his job—protect them—had been neglected. Virgil had _failed_, and he’d failed spectacularly. He couldn’t even do his basic job, and everybody he cared about got hurt in the aftermath of his shortcoming.

Maybe Remus had a point; maybe Virgil needs to stop looking for other people to blame. Maybe it’s his fault for not being there in the first place. Virgil’s name was derived from the word _vigilant_. And he hadn’t been. Not enough, anyway.

It was his_ own room_. Virgil hadn’t been able to get into his own room to help them get out. How pathetic is that?

Another knock, tentative but nevertheless present, interrupts his thoughts. “Kiddo?”

_Patton?_

Virgil pauses his music from his phone and shuffles to the door, swinging it open. Patton stands on the other side with his cat hoodie pulled over his blue polo, the gray hood pulled up over his flop of brown hair. The father figure figment offers Virgil a small, uncertain smile. His gaze flickers briefly past Virgil’s head into the room, then back at the Anxious Side.

Virgil steps out into the hall and closes the door behind him with a quiet click. “Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

Patton shrugs, but there’s something small and uncertain about the movement. “I just wanted to check in on ya.”

Virgil looks at him a little closer. It’s the first time Virgil has seen the Moral Side since he’d kissed Virgil’s head and went to his own room the previous night. Patton looks a little better rested than Roman had earlier today, but he still looks wrong. Like he’s trying to make himself smaller than he is. His hands are tucked into the pocket of his hoodie, his arms tight to his side as if trying to hug himself.

He looks like he’s still a little bit afraid. Virgil knows the feeling well. He hates how it looks on Patton.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” Virgil asks suddenly, already walking towards the Mindscape kitchen. “I could use something warm to drink.”

“That… sounds really nice.”

They make their way in silence. Virgil feels like he should ask something, or say something to break the quiet between them, but he doesn’t know what to say. As he passes Logan’s room, he sees that the light is on. He thinks about knocking. He doesn’t.

When they reach the kitchen, Virgil rummages through the cabinets for a pair of mugs and some marshmallows. He’s admittedly a little relieved when Patton breaks the silence behind him.

“It’s been pretty quiet around here today.”

Virgil finds a mug with the words “espresso patronum” for Patton and a Nightmare Before Christmas mug for himself. “Yeah,” he replies. “It has.”

“Are you okay?”

Virgil glances quickly over his shoulder at the Moral Side before grabbing the marshmallows off the shelf and closing the cabinet. He isn’t sure how to answer. “Are you?”

Patton is pouring milk into a pot on the stove. He doesn’t answer right away. “I don’t know.”

Virgil thinks it’s the first honest answer he’s been given today. He feels an odd twinge of pride. Patton had promised he’d try to be more honest about his feelings, and he’d stuck true to that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Virgil offers.

Patton stirs the milk with a wooden spoon and doesn’t look at Virgil. “Have you seen Logan and Roman today?”

Virgil leans against the kitchen counter and rubs the back of his neck. “Briefly,” he says. “Deceit kind of… intervened in my conversation with Logan. And Roman was, um.” Virgil tries to think of a kind way to word what had happened between him and Roman earlier today.

Patton nods. “Yesterday was…. A lot. For both of them.”

Virgil swallows. “For you, too.”

Patton finally glances over at him. The corner of his mouth twitches in a faint, sad smile. “Yeah. For all of us, I think. I think Logan is still angry. And I think Roman is hurt.”

The Anxious Side crosses his arms over his chest and tries not to wince. _Because of me_, he adds to the end of Patton’s comments. He knows Patton wouldn’t dream of saying it. He’d always been too kind for that sort of thing.

“And what about you?” Virgil asks softly, meeting Patton’s gaze for a fleeting moment before Patton looks back at the pot of milk.

“Oh, your old Dad is just… worried,” Patton says with some hesitation. “Afraid.”

Virgil watches as Patton sighs, taps the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot, and sets it aside. Virgil jumps up and sits on the edge of the counter as Patton leans on the one beside the stove. The light above the stove and the lamp that was left on in the commons space is the only source of light in the small kitchen. Patton’s hood casts shadows across his face. It makes him look younger somehow.

“Afraid of what, Patton?”

“Afraid of it happening again.” Patton looks at Virgil again, and holds his gaze this time. “It was… scary, Virge.” The same haunted look that had been in Patton’s eyes when Virgil first saw him last night flickers through his eyes again.

Virgil shifts uncomfortably. “You think there’s a chance of that?”

He sees Patton swallow. “I don’t _want_ to think that. But… yeah. I do.”

“Thomas wants to think that he’s fine,” Virgil says in a low, quiet voice.

“He isn’t,” Patton replies immediately. It solidifies something in Virgil’s chest. “Logan can’t let go of his anger over what happened. Roman can barely keep it together and won’t stop berating himself when he thinks nobody is around to hear him. I’m…” Patton’s voice wavers. “I don’t think I’m okay either, Virgil. I just… _want_ to be.”

And it was _his fault_. Because he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been able to fulfill his role, his sworn duty. But maybe he could now.

Thomas had said that it was important for him to _recognize the concern, register it, and carry on, changing his actions if necessary_. But part of that was on Virgil. To make sure Thomas was doing those things. And right now, he _wasn’t_. Thomas wasn’t recognizing or registering the concern. The obvious signs that he was _not okay_.

Thomas isn’t fine.

“Virgil?” Patton asks. “What is it?”

“I have to talk to Thomas. And… I think I need everybody else, too.”

…

Thomas is in his bedroom when Virgil rises up behind him, just inside the doorway. The host kicks a dirty sweatshirt in the general direction of the laundry basket and sighs, raking a hand back through his hair. He’s changed into pajamas. Music plays quietly from his phone, discarded on the bed amidst the haphazard arrangement of blankets.

Virgil clears his throat. Thomas jumps a little, spinning around to face his Anxious Side.

“Geez, Virgil.” Thomas presses a hand to his chest. “You scared me.”

“Can we talk?”

Thomas sighs a little, but Virgil doesn’t miss the tensing in his shoulders. “Is this still about yesterday?”

Virgil purses his lips at the exasperated look in Thomas’s eyes. “Yeah. It is.”

“I already told you I don’t want to talk about it.” Thomas adjusts in his hair again and leans over to pick up a pair of socks. He tosses them into the basket as well. 

“I know,” Virgil says, watching him busy himself by needlessly adjusting the blankets on the bed. “I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I think you need to.”

“Can’t we just… agree to disagree?”

The Anxious Side scoffs. “When have I ever been okay with just ‘agreeing to disagree’?”

Thomas is silent, snatching his phone as it tumbles unceremoniously to the floor from a blanket he’d been shaking out. He looks… tired. Virgil knows that it really shouldn’t come as a surprise—everyone had seemed tired in the Mindscape today, so it certainly stood to reason that Thomas would appear tired as well. But it reminds Virgil suddenly of Thomas’s red eyes and wet cheeks moments before collapsing against the Anxious Side yesterday.

Virgil never wants to experience that again.

He sighs. “You’re really going to make me call in the cavalry?”

“Virgil—”

The Anxious Side waves a hand. In short succession, Patton, Roman, and Logan all rise up at various locations throughout the room. Thomas’s surprised and faintly alarmed gaze flickers between the four of them. Virgil can’t tell if Thomas realizes how rough the rest of them look. He doesn’t know if maybe just _seeing_ them would be enough of a wake-up call to get the host to stop lying to himself.

The thought makes Virgil’s own gaze take in each Side closely. Looking for any…. Inconsistencies. _Looking for Deceit_.

“What is this?” Thomas’s brow furrows as he asks the question.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Virgil continues, looking back at the host. Thomas meets his gaze, something that looks almost like confusion flickering through his eyes. He opens his mouth to reply but Virgil holds up a hand and interrupts him. “Look, I get it. I wasn’t there when you needed me yesterday. But… Thomas, you have to face facts. And if you don’t want to listen to _me_, maybe you’ll talk to _them_.”

“Thomas,” Logan says suddenly, as if afraid to lose the chance, “you must stop trying to outrun what happened yesterday. It will eventually catch up to you.”

Thomas shakes his head quickly. “I’m not outrunning anything. Yesterday was just. A freak thing. I’m fine.” Virgil doesn’t miss the resurgence of frustration that flares in Logan’s eyes.

“Are you sure about that, kiddo?” Patton asks softly. The lamp from the nightstand illuminates his face more than the light from the Mindscape, and Virgil can finally see he also still has the lingering shadow around his eyes like Roman had earlier. “I mean. Look around ya.”

Thomas does. His gaze floats around the room, and Virgil silently implores that he really _sees_ them. That he sees the way Patton is trying so hard to be small, the way Logan clenches his jaw against words he’s afraid won’t be heard, the way Roman ducks away from the careful eyes of the host as if he’s ashamed.

From the slight caving to Thomas’s shoulders, Virgil thinks maybe he _has_. “Guys….” Thomas says, his voice wavering. “I—”

“You’re all just worrying too much,” Roman interrupts in a rush, sweeping a hand out. “Thomas, you’re fine. We’re all fine.”

Virgil shoots Roman a sharp look. He can see Thomas nodding uncertainly. “Right,” Thomas says slowly. “Yeah, I’m… I’m fine. I mean, a little tired, but still.”

Virgil hears Logan huff a breath beside him. “Thomas. You must stop this ridiculous charade. Yesterday—” Logan’s hand suddenly clamps across his own mouth, muffling his words.

Tension ripples down Virgil’s muscles, coiling them tightly. _Deceit_. He can see the flash of anger spark in Logan’s eyes again.

“Logan’s right—” Patton’s hand flies to cover his own mouth, too. Confusion, followed immediately by alarm, alights in the Moral Side’s eyes too.

Virgil feels his throat tighten. Thomas squeezes his own eyes shut.

“Thomas,” Virgil says urgently, because _through Thomas_ is the only way he can fight Deceit when the Lying Side won’t show himself. “Thomas, you _have_ to stop lying to yourself. You are _not_ okay.”

“I’m _fine_.”

“**No,**” Virgil demands, distortion leaking into his voice. “**You aren’t. Look around you, Thomas. Does this seem ‘fine’ to you?” **Virgil steps closer, gesturing to Logan and Patton both.

“Yesterday was just a one-time, freak thing,” Thomas insists. “It’s not going to happen again.”

Virgil looks desperately around the room. Roman is staring at Patton, his gaze somehow both distant and horrified. Virgil can feel both Patton and Logan looking at him imploringly. But he doesn’t know what else he can _do_.

The room feels like it’s spinning. He’s fighting a losing battle. Thomas is drowning. Deceit has his claws sunk deep into him, and Virgil doesn’t know how to break him out of it.

Maybe it’s too late.

“**I…” **Virgil sags a little. He doesn’t know what else he can say to Thomas to snap him out of it. He doesn’t know how to help him. The painful, terrifying helplessness he’d felt yesterday slams back into him with a force that makes the air choke in his lungs. His heart hammers in his chest with the weight of his failure, his constant shortcoming.

He says the same words he said then.

“**I’m sorry.”**

He couldn’t protect them from what happened yesterday, and apparently he can’t protect Thomas now. He’d failed. Again. And everyone was going to get hurt. _Again_. _Again and again and again_.

“Sorry?” Thomas asks, his eyes fluttering open and looking at Virgil in confusion. “What are you sorry for?”

“**For everything**.” Virgil waves a hand. “**Because I wasn’t… Because I couldn’t get through the fucking door**.”

Thomas blinks. “You… you were trying to get us out?”

Virgil stares at the host standing in front of him. Could Thomas really have not heard him through the door? “**I mean… yeah**. **Of** course.” Virgil blinks as the distortion fades, but continues speaking. “I’ve always aimed to protect you. I just… failed yesterday. And apparently I’m failing you again.”

“Failing me?”

Logan releases a sharp, relieved breath as his hand falls away from his mouth. “Virgil, what happened yesterday was not your fault.”

Virgil shakes his head, waving a dismissive hand in Logan’s direction. “I should have been able to at least get you out. I… I don’t know why I couldn’t get that door open. And once it _did_ open…” Virgil shivers. His arms feel heavy with the reminder of Thomas’s weight against them. The way he’d just… _collapsed_….

Virgil thinks he might be sick.

“If anything,” Logan replies, his voice a bit softer, “I am the one to be principally to blame. I was the reason he was online in the first place. And when he saw…. What he did…” He casts a furtive glance at the host, who averts his gaze. “Well. Everything happened very quickly.”

“I should have been able to get us out,” Roman says quietly. His voice is heavy and resigned with more weight than Virgil knows he ought to shoulder. “I should have found some kind of solution to the problem at hand. Maybe even be fast and strong enough to fight off….” He trails off. Shakes his head. “Instead… how I acted in there was… unbecoming of a prince.”

“We were scared,” Patton adds in a gentle voice, his own hand falling away from his mouth. “I think a lot of us still are. I think… _you_ are, Thomas. I think that’s why you want to believe Deceit so badly. But it’s not the truth.”

Thomas winces. The host looks like the ground has shifted beneath his feet. His arms wrap around his chest in a loose hold. As if he thinks that he can physically hold himself together, and maybe keep the rest of them from falling apart too. Thomas stares at the ground just short of Virgil’s feet, opens his mouth, and then shakes his head and lifts a shoulder helplessly. Instead, he sucks in a trembling breath.

“You’re not okay,” Virgil says again, in a much softer voice than he had before. He swallows thickly. “And I’m… I’m sorry, Thomas. Because maybe you would be if I could have just… gotten through that door. Got you out of my room.”

“You were trying,” Thomas says suddenly. His eyes—glistening a little in the light of the lamp on the nightstand—glance up and lock squarely onto Virgil. “That’s what you just told us, wasn’t it? You were trying to get to us. You were trying to help us.”

“I was… scared.”

“Yeah,” Thomas says, rubbing absently at his arms. He glances down at his sock clad feet, then back up at his Anxious Side. “It was…. Scary. Intense. And… Patton’s right. I think maybe I am scared that it’s going to happen again and I won’t know how to get out, and you won’t be in there to help us. Just like last time.”

Virgil hears Logan take a deep, slow breath. When he adjusts his glasses, Virgil realizes that Logan looks calm for the first time since before the incident happened. “Perhaps it is time to see what resources are available to us.”

Patton nods, a note of hope to his still unusually subdued voice. “Just because we’re not okay right now…”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t get there,” Roman finishes, with a single nod. He stands a little bit taller now.

Thomas takes a deep breath. He holds it for a few moments. Then releases. Virgil feels something warm squeeze his chest as he realizes Thomas is trying the 4-7-8 breathing exercise Virgil had taught him the very first time Thomas had shown up in his room.

Thomas and Virgil exchange a faint smile and reply at the same time.

“Okay.”

…

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought!


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